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Google Sets Sights on Destroying Microsoft, Twitter Next

You don't realize it, but every time you log into your Gmail, every time you dash off a Gchat message, the stock-option-holding nerds in Mountain View, Calif., smile a little bit wider. Why? Because slowly but surely, Google is taking over the world, and there's nothing your or I can do about it.

Think about it. Imagine the Internet without Google. How would that even work? We don't know. You probably don't, either. Google is the astrolabe to this millennium's seafaring explorers. It's where you would go if you read that last sentence and realized you don't know what an astrolabe is. Or if you want to buy one ($48.95 plus shipping on Google Shopping), read about one (an Edmonton Sunstory on Google News notes that a Canadian astronaut is carrying one on the Space Shuttle), or look at pictures of one (you have 81,900 to choose from on Google Images).

You get the point.

Google took in more than $20 billion last year and employs more than 20,000 people across the world. In May, we submitted six billion search queries, according to Nielsen — or more than 130,000 every minute. This was all endearing at first. Google employees rode bicycles to work and decorated their offices with lava lamps and played foosball to relax. If only every company were like that!But then Google started taking pictures of our innocent tree-lined neighborhoods and irking antitrust regulators and generally positioning itself on the course for world domination—which leads us to today. As Google edges toward conquering the world—or at least the Internet—in the coming months, V.F. Daily will track its progress. Notable developments in Google's conquest over the past week:

Google appears to have decided on its next victim: Microsoft. Nine months after launching its own browser—Google Chrome—Google announced last Wednesday that it will use the browser as the centerpiece in a new P.C. operating system that ostensibly will compete with Windows. "We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear—computers need to get better," the company said. Hear that, Bill Gates? It's on.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin spent last week hobnobbing with fellow moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho, at the annual conference sponsored by the investment bank Allen & Co.—and perhaps shopping for their next acquisition. Three years ago, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley was the star of the conference, and Google snapped up his company just three months later. This year's most-anticipated guest? Evan Williams, the C.E.O. of Twitter, on which Page and Brin have been rumored to have their sights set.

Lawyers at the Justice Department, meanwhile, have set their sights on Google Books. The DOJ has launched an antitrust investigation into the $125 million settlement of a lawsuit on behalf of authors who said Google's plans to digitize millions of books went against copyright laws. The government investigation is the third Google faces; separate inquires have been launched to examine the hiring practices at Google and other technology firms and the ties between the boards of Apple and Google.

Half a decade after it was first launched, Gmail finally lost its "beta" tag last week. It's about time!